The present invention is directed to a dental instrument deposit table that, in addition to containing a deposit surface for the instruments, contains holder means for cable-bound and hose-bound handpieces, as well as manipulation means with which a positional change of the instrument deposit table can be produced.
Dental instrument deposit tables have mainly three functional areas that are practically constantly exposed to contamination with germs and must, therefore, be considered especially critical from a hygienic viewpoint. A first area is the placement or, respectively, deposit surface for the instruments, which may be hand instruments, materials, instrument arrays and trays. A second area is holder means for the hose-bound and cable-bound handpieces that can be contaminated with germs when using the instruments. A third functional area is the manipulation means with which the change in position of the instrument deposit table can be produced. Given mechanical displaceability of the instrument deposit table, these manipulation means are usually one or more grips or, respectively, grip-like structures that are provided at a suitable location on the instrument deposit table.
In order to satisfy the demands made of hygiene, a change has already been made for arranging the grips in a removable fashion or to provide them with a protective coating fashioned as a throw-away article. Such an arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,616. Apart from the fact that only a part of the hygiene problem can be solved with this proposal, coverings, such as other materials, are employable only once, for example paper napkins that can be placed onto the placement surface for the array of instruments, and this material represents a material that is additionally required, which allows the quantity of waste that has already been recently increasing to increase to even a greater degree.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,271,860 also discloses that a plurality of handpieces together with their supply hoses can be arranged next to one another and above one another in compartments sub-divided by partitions in a container that is fashioned box-like and can be closed on all sides. The container can be removed from the cabinet unit and can be put into a sterilizer for the purpose of sterilizing both the handpieces and their supply hoses. When removing the container, the supply hoses of the handpieces are separated from their leads and the line connection must be restored upon reintroduction or return of the container. A sterilization of the entire container including the handpieces and their supply hoses contained therein is relatively complicated and also is involved in terms of manipulation, particularly in view of the uncoupling and recoupling of the supply hoses required with each sterilization.